Lessons From A Failed Indiegogo Project That Tried To Tell Us How Porn Messes With Our Brains

With the government finally admitting to banning porn in the country, here’s an offbeat take on the topic. Many of us watch porn but we don’t know what impact it has on our brains. Without this knowledge, we either get in too deep and become addicted to porn or we get so wrecked with guilt that we vow never to watch porn ever again.

Some months ago, a project on Indiegogo tried to create a documentary called ‘Rewired’ on this problem. With the help of scientists and their research and the evidence of young men who spoke about watching porn, ‘Rewired’ was an attempt to understand the ‘effects of Internet pornography on the human brain’. The project failed to cover its entire funding amount but there are important lessons we can learn from its campaign.

Individuals describe how they felt alive while watching porn online even as the rest of their lives was a complete mess. For many, this was a release from their problems in more ways than one. What makes matters worse is that high-speed Internet is a very recent phenomenon and the effects of excessive porn have not been studied properly to make an informed opinion. Over and above this, our cultural and moral upbringing followed by lack of information on sex only adds to the problem.

Watching porn induces dopamine that triggers anticipation and expectation in our mind. This chemical neurotransmitter basically motivates us to do whatever we do during our waking hours. It’s the same chemical that is released when we have great food, go for shopping and have sex. Too much of online porn, though, is akin to being on drugs. As Dr. Valerie Voon, neuropsychiatrist, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom says in the documentary, “There are clear differences in brain activity between patients who have compulsive sexual behaviour and healthy volunteers. These differences mirror those of drug addicts.”

Eventually, it was problems like porn-induced erectile dysfunction and not being able to orgasm with real people that made those featured in this documentary stop porn. In India too, this problem needs to be spoken about at length before the problems of excessive porn become all-too-common. We need to address the issue of porn addiction openly and without any of its accompanied bias of shame and fear to truly understand the problem. Also, to clarify, we do not support the government’s sneaky blanket ban on porn.